


Painful Conversations

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: For Family [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 10:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7504468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Tatooine, a boy is introduced to concepts that make no sense. And an old Master gets to turn in his side of the story to angry montrals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painful Conversations

Obi-Wan Kenobi had evaded Inquisitors on other planets in short jaunts away from his responsibility here. He wasn't certain if he would be so lucky this time, as the Imperial Skyhopper appeared and cut off the forward pass. He could feel a Force user aboard it, one with a strong, almost wild stamp to their touch in the Force.

Curiously, it did not feel Dark, merely shaded.

"Luke, stay behind me," he ordered, as he drew his lightsaber hilt but did not ignite it, not yet. When the ship opened, he was ready to defend his student, to the death if necessary… but seeing a man in modified clone armor and… "Ahsoka Tano?!" he demanded as the montrals and markings clarified against a long-ago memory. The fact the trooper was in blue-painted armor… with _jaig_ eyes… was he hallucinating? "Captain?"

Luke was torn between wanting to get closer and see the ship, unease about an Imperial ship -- and that wasn't a garrison ship, even -- coming this far out into the wastes, and, after a nonhuman woman and a man in armor that was definitely not Imperial walked down off the ramp, complete confusion. He'd thought the Empire had policies against -- 

\-- and Ben, Obi-Wan, knew them?! He faded back a little more, trying to pay attention to everything at once. 

Ahsoka's eyes swept over -- //oh, Force, when did _he_ get old?// -- Kenobi, past his startled eyes and lightsaber in hand, to the boy back behind his shoulder. Not as tall as her Skyguy, and his hair was pale blond almost to the roots, but she would know those blue eyes anywhere. Kenobi's voice, as stunned as his presence in the Force, rang on her name, and she nodded once, sharply. 

"That's me," she agreed, and let her heels come off the ground a little as she stalked towards him. "And you and I, Obi-Wan, are going. to. talk." 

"Not with that aggressive attitude, Lady Tano," Obi-Wan said, keeping himself protectively in front of Luke, remembering Ahsoka tended to low, fast strikes in open spaces. She was openly wearing two hilts, one curved hilt that complemented the more traditional blade. Kriff, but she'd always been talented at the dual wielding style, and she looked so young!

"General, I'd suggest you do as she says, given she's probably already saved your life by being the one here," Rex offered, even as he took in the boy. That the boy was closer in size to Leia than his own general was a surprise, but then Padmé Amidala had been a small woman. Those eyes… they looked like Skywalker on the really good days.

Ahsoka snorted softly, glancing over her shoulder for a breath at her husband, fondly, before she focused back on the man she'd once trusted as much as she loved her master, the man that was now her _ori'vod_. "Oh, no doubt of that," she agreed, keeping her connection to the Force wide open and waiting. "Though you have half a point, Obi-Wan." 

She looked past him, reminded of the need not to scare the boy, and gave a close-lipped smile to him. "Hello, young one. Despite what this old Master may have told you, you're in no danger from me or Rex, and I'm sorry I'm a little too annoyed with him to give you a better impression of me. 

"I'll try and make up for it later, okay?" 

Luke had been listening intently, trying to watch all three of them at once, listening to both... and then the woman's attention was on him, her eyes suddenly much more friendly, an honest smile on her lips (though she was hiding her teeth) as she spoke. He had no idea what to make of any of this, but since she'd actually talked to him, asked him a question... 

"Well, you're right about the impression, but... okay. Do I get to ask what you're so mad at him about?" 

"No," Obi-Wan said, suspecting that this was going to get ugly. "As she only has half a side of a story, and it's quite biased, full of deceit, no doubt."

"Thin ice, General, to tread on," Rex said firmly, trying to urge caution. "Seeing as you have as little of the story as you think she does. Get intel, then move?"

The Jedi looked at the clone, eyes narrow… then touched the Force again. Shades, not darkness, around her, and she was being utterly reasonable. What did Rex mean? 

"I will talk with you, but any attempt to remove Luke from this place will be taken as an attack, and I will retaliate," he warned her, slipping his lightsaber hilt back to his belt. He waved a hand at the shade, suggesting it as a spot for them to sit.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and headed towards the shade. "Fine, Obi-Wan, fine. You and I can sit over here and try not to scream at each other loud enough for Rex and -- Luke, is it? Thank you for the half of an introduction, at least -- to hear, while they stay over there in _that_ shade where we can both see them, yes?" 

"That will be suitable. Nice to see you are as irreverent as ever," Obi-Wan said, trying to get this on the calmer footing he desired.

Rex stepped over toward the shade Ahsoka had pointed out, and looked at the kid. "Come on, boy. You're in little enough danger from me, and I hate standing in this forsaken sun. You can call me Rex, and if you missed it, that's Ahsoka. We're not here to hurt you, and would have preferred just talking to you at your place."

Ahsoka flashed an edge of a smile -- with her teeth, this time, so Obi-Wan knew what she thought of his amusement -- as she moved to the shade to find herself a place to perch. She wanted to yell at him, to snarl, to make him explain... but he was doing his best calm, composed negotiator, and she wasn't going to get _anywhere_ with him if she flew off the handle. "I cannot _believe_ you brought any child to this hellhole; what the kriff were you thinking?" Okay, that anger was totally justified.

Obi-Wan watched as his student settled with the clone, then focused back on the most pressing problem, the former Jedi Apprentice that was entirely too dangerous on his senses. He regarded her evenly, seeing the signs of stress around her eyes, but otherwise… she was younger than he would have expected.

"I felt you die, three, almost four years ago," he said, instead of answering her question. "Such a vivid light inside the Force, when so few were left, and then you were gone."

Ahsoka shook her head, watching him and that he'd completely ignored her question, then shrugged slightly. "Apparently carbon freezing feels a lot like death from the other side? I'd gone with Kanan and Ezra to find Malachor, on Master Yoda's instruction... the Inquisitors managed to track us down again, and they sent for Vader. 

"We were attacked, Ezra got separated from us... and I wound up facing Vader, to give them time to flee. It was a nasty fight, inside a collapsing Sith Temple. We had to stop fighting just to survive, and I managed to... get away from him." She'd lost her Skyguy again, in the attempt to get out, Vader had reared up again, doing his best to kill her, and she'd had to. 

"Unfortunately, I didn't have a ship, and he had the drugs the Inquisitors use. I got hit with a dart... and the next thing I knew, I was waking up on Honoghr, blind, weak as a kitten, and with Vader telling me I was going to help him kill the Emperor." 

Obi-Wan took a deep breath. "So that he could finally take his Empire," the man said sadly, closing his eyes and looking down. "I am sorry to hear that, Ahsoka." He then looked back at her, and all of his age, plus the stress of the life he'd led, all came to his eyes. "This was the only place I had hope of being able to protect the boy where he might also have family to interact with. Given how Owen Lars has proven to be over the years, I would have done better to go with Yoda and attempt to parent him myself."

Ahsoka bared her teeth at him for the assumption, shaking her head, her lekku twitching in annoyance -- but she'd felt that he was actually going to answer her, so she'd kept quiet and listened. The mention of Yoda got a quiet growl, and another twitch, before she shook her head, returning to that first sentence. 

"You're wrong, Obi-Wan. He didn't want the Empire. That's not why he woke me up." 

Obi-Wan looked at her with pitying eyes. "Ahsoka, I have no ideas what lies he has been giving to you, but I am never, ever going to be able to forget his mad ravings at Padmé about taking the Empire for them to rule together!" he told her in a hushed, strained voice. "I will never forget the sight of my friend being choked by the man she loved, the one who had claimed everything he had done, even killing the babies and younglings, was for her!"

"He _was_ mad," Ahsoka agreed, as her heart clenched against the tone of her unofficial Master's voice. That... that part her _ori'vod_ hadn't said, not in so many words. He'd said he'd hurt her, that he'd believed the Emperor when he said that he had killed her. "Especially right then, with everything that was going on in his head -- which, no, is _not_ an excuse! 

"But he woke me out of carbonite so that Padmé's daughter would be safe from Sidious." 

Obi-Wan flinched as if she had physically struck him. "He knows about Leia?" The blood drained from his face. "And now about Luke?" His mind tore over all the possibilities. "Bail promised he would protect her. I couldn't handle both of them…" He shook his head, and looked over to the boy sitting with Rex, all of his worry a physical thing in the Force. "Ahsoka, what you are saying… it is hard to believe, you must understand. I faced… I faced Darth Vader, and there was not a trace of Anakin Skywalker left in him."

"It's not Bail's fault, Obi-Wan," Ahsoka replied, instantly, that flinch, the shock and horror and worry convincing her that, whatever else he'd done, Obi-Wan was honestly trying to protect Luke and Leia. "It's really not. She's very good at keeping herself hidden from the Force... but apparently she has his scent.

"And believe me, Obi-Wan, I know. I've fought Darth Vader, too. But the man waiting up on the Star Destroyer... isn't Darth Vader, anymore. He's -- he's not Anakin, either. I'm not sure _he_ knows who he is, now." 

Obi-Wan watched her, looked again at Luke, and his shoulders slumped heavily to see Rex was over there, showing the boy something on a portable comm unit. He shook his head, and took a deep breath. "Nowhere to run any longer, is there? I knew I should have insisted with Owen, younger, but I kept hoping I'd be able to spare him all of it.

"Ahsoka, I would love to believe you… I would give anything to know something of my brother survived!" He looked at her with all of the pain of that fight on Mustafar in his eyes. "But I lost all hope the moment he spoke to Padmé on that planet. No matter what she wished."

Ahsoka could see his pain, feel it, and a little of her incredible rage at him subsided -- but only a little. "No. There's nowhere to run... but you also don't have to. Or at least, the kids don't. You... you he wants to hurt," she admitted, back of her hand rubbing across her markings. "But after driving myself to Force-drain five times in the last two months, I'm _sort of on his side_ there!! 

"But only sort of. Because I can still taste that you -- you weren't lying, or being as cruel as Sidious -- when you said that." 

"Force-drain? _For_ his sake?" Obi-wan asked with concern. "Ahsoka, what has he done to you?"

She snarled at him, her hands clenching into fists as she shifted on her perch. "He hasn't done _anything_! Unless you count, oh, saving my life from the Emperor, trusting me to protect his daughter, working thirty-hour days helping Bail and Mon Mothma rebuild a vaguely functional government out of the wreckage of the Empire, and **keeping** me from Falling!" 

There was nothing but truth and honesty in what she had said, as well as heartfelt passion. Obi-Wan focused on that last, more than anything, and touched the bright flame that Ahsoka was in the Force. She was shaded, tinged by the hint of darkness… that nearly every Jedi who went through the War had gained. 

Too many decisions that had been forced for the greater good had been dark-touched.

"He's working with the leaders of the Rebellion, to build a new government," he finally said, soft and low. "Padmé would be so proud of him for that." The woman would also want her husband to know his children… but it was so hard to know how to trust ever again.

Anakin had been his heart, but the Order had been Obi-Wan's soul. The two of those things being put in direct opposition had almost destroyed him completely.

She nodded, watching him, listening to the Force whispering of his pain and grief. "He is," she agreed, soft. Seeing his obvious and wracking grief... it helped, on one hand, and on the other... "Master, how _could_ you?! You left. him. to, _burn_. to. **death**!! Do you **know** what you did to him?!!" 

Obi-Wan met her gaze, jaw firm. "Ahsoka, he should have already been dead. The Force itself wasn't allowing him to die! As much as I made myself remember the bodies of the younglings, I could not strike further, for fear of him managing to pull me down with him! I had Padmé to get to, to try and save!"

If only his last blow had been enough… he still didn't know how Anakin -- VADER! -- had gotten enough height at the last to be able throw off where that blow should have landed.

He was in agony at the memories, his pain roiling off his words... but Ahsoka's lip curled in disgust, all the same. "Oh, yes. It was _so_ much more 'noble' and 'Jedi', so much more 'light side of the Force'... to leave him unable to move. Leave him forced to breathe those gases, feeling every moment of his body slowly searing, crisping, sloughing away. Leave him for the Emperor to **mutilate** further, poison and manipulate and mind-control more.

"Oh, yes, **that** was the Jedi thing to do." 

Obi-Wan shuddered violently, hands coming up to cover his face, his body slumping in on itself. "He never should have made the jump. I begged him not to… I knew just how injured and worn down he was… I planned for a clean blow, Ahsoka… I did.

"Only he had more height, and I was committed. I never would have made a dismemberment of that style! Never!" He was shaking a little as his voice fell. "Working myself to the point I could kill him once had taken everything I was… to make the second blow, against him, against the memory of who he had been… I couldn't. I was a coward, so I used that he was unarmed, that Padmé was in danger to turn and flee. I did not expect him to survive, I admit."

Watching him slump, cover his face and shake violently... that helped a little, and she absorbed what he'd said. That... _that_ she could believe of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, General of the 212th. A burst of relief ran through her at finally having something she could understand, at least a little. 

She had no idea if it would be enough to save him, if anything _could_ save him from her _ori'vod_ 's rage... but it might give her a chance. "That... that might help me calm him down. Maybe. I... I just don't know. He's... not Anakin, very much not... but he's not Sith anymore, either."

Obi-Wan looked at her, then reached out, needing to touch at least one of her hands, to have a solid feel of her. "Is Leia truly safe? Will Luke be? That is all I care about. They are… Padmé's hope. Her future. To see one or both Fall… means I failed her even more than just taking her to her death."

Ahsoka tangled her fingers with his, letting him have her hand, giving him the connection he seemed to need, nodding to him. "As far as I can tell... yes. He loves his children. Leia nearly has him wrapped around her fingers -- it's sort of adorable, actually. 

"And he... doesn't want them to Fall, any more than he wants me to. He just wants his children. Okay, and to fix Honoghr for the Noghri, and probably to hit Jabba's Palace with every turbolaser battery the _Exactor_ has -- but I _think_ I can keep him from that last." 

"I'd hope so; I'd rather not be the reason Fett winds up dead finally if I can help it," Obi-Wan said to the last. He knew the Mandolorian's rage with him and all Jedi was sincere, but it was not without basis in reason. He turned to watch Luke, his heart folding around the need to keep him safe and strong. "He's naive. Wants to help Owen and Beru survive, even as he longs for adventure. Convince … convince the man that fathered him to provide some support to the Whitesun-Lars family, and he would willingly go, just to see what is out there.

"I have misgivings, would prefer to keep the boy here, keep teaching him. That's not an option, is it, Ahsoka?"

Ahsoka shook her head, looking at Obi-Wan steadily. How could he think that was even vaguely a possibility? "Maybe if you'd taken him to Naboo, or _anywhere_ else, that would be a possibility. But Tatooine? No, there's **no** way he's going to leave him here. 

"He wants my help teaching them -- I don't know if anything can convince him to let you stay near them, but... I can try, if you want me to?" She cocked her head, studying his face, trying to decide if that would be anything like a good idea. 

"Are they struggling? His family? Like, more than usual?" If they were, she could surely shake something loose to help them. They _had_ taken care of Luke all these years. 

"It's been a rough few seasons," Obi-Wan said. "I haven't found as much to salvage to leave credits for them," he added. He then looked down at his hands, before up, out to space where his former student was.

"Take the boy, and ask _him_ to see me. Alone. Let us settle his past." It might mean his own death, but if what Ahsoka was saying was true, it needed to happen, or Vader would always be aware of Obi-Wan escaping him.

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes at him, her head tilting as her lekku twitched, and then she nodded slowly. She could feel his determination -- and never in her life had she had any luck with Obi-Wan Kenobi in stubborn mode. "Okay. That -- Obi-Wan, that might be the best thing you could do. If he knows you're not _actually_ trying to keep Leia's brother from her, or from him... that should help. 

" _Kriff_ , I came down here almost as angry with you as he is," she grumbled, glaring at him, her own emotions a topsy-turvy roil of anger and hurt and sudden protectiveness, "and then you turn those big sad blue eyes on me, tell me your part of the story... and I start trying to figure out how to keep you alive. 

"Stupid human men!" 

"Are we all so stupid?" He directed her attention to the clone sitting with the boy. "Or just some of us?" He was curious for Rex's story, curious how the man had survived, had… managed, when the one man Obi-Wan had counted on more than any other save Anakin had easily shot at him.

"You and my _ori'vod_ together are stupid enough for the entire _galaxy_ of human men," Ahsoka replied, though her mouth quirked a little at his calling her on the over-generalization. "And no, my _riduur_ is not at all stupid. The boy, I have no idea."

 _Riduur_. He searched through his memory… and the word came as one he'd heard from another pair of feminine lips, whispered in a moment of wishing for the galaxy to be some other way. "You married him. That, I did not see coming."

Not that he'd seen any of this. His heart so wished for it to be true, though, that he could finally be at an end of seeing those he loved dying or betraying him.

Ahsoka dipped her head, dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked back up at him with a flash of her grin. "Jury's still out on exactly who married who, but... yes. We did. And then we got separated again, and I got stuck in carbonite... but at least I managed to undo that _obscene_ accelerated aging they set up for in case some of their 'property' got wise to those monstrous chips!" 

She kept hold of his fingers, her eyes on his again. "It's so good to see you again, my friend." 

"I wish I could say the same, Ahsoka, but under these circumstances, I'd rather not have," he told her. He did squeeze her fingers anyway. "Perhaps… there will be a later. Either way, I am pleased you lived, and are still yourself."

She snorted, soft, and smiled at him, moving closer to lay her head against his shoulder and wrap an arm around him. "I understand that -- I do, really. 

"You've spent the last... eighteen years? Looking after that boy over there, trying to keep him safe, and here I am, showing up in an Imperial dropship, with one of the people you probably want to see least in the world, and coming from the one you _definitely_ want to see least? 

"Also telling you all of your canny planning has been for absolutely nothing? I wouldn't be happy to see me, either." 

Obi-Wan half smiled, a little amused sound escaping him, as he rubbed at his beard. He watched Rex a moment longer, his eyes shadowed, before he stood. "He should come once one sun has set, but he'd remember that, at least." Resolutely, without saying farewell, he began to walk toward the boy, so he could help him understand.

"K'oyacyi!" she yelled at his back, once he was several steps away and wouldn't be deafened by it. But she'd lost so, so many... if there was any chance of keeping her other Master alive, she was going to try. 

She stayed where she was, perched on the rock, and waited to see if Rex was going to come over to join her. 

++++

Rex settled with Luke in the shade, dividing his attention. Just because he didn't want to get in the middle of a fight with _Jetii'kad_ , didn't mean he wouldn't if his _riduur_ was in danger.

"Probably have some questions, don't you?" he said, to try and help the kid settle.

"I have nothing _but_ questions," Luke agreed honestly, studying the stranger's face. Hard, soldier's eyes, but not... brutal. "Probably more than I've got air for, really. But... I think there's only one really important one. 

"Is my family going to get hurt because you're here?" 

"No." Rex said that firmly. "We purposefully stayed out of sight even, when we scouted the homestead for you, trying not to raise a fuss. Ahsoka wanted this handled quietly, and amazingly has learned how to be discreet somewhere in the last twenty years." He tipped his head to the side, eyes narrowing as he regarded the boy wearing a lightsaber hilt. "Has the General taught you how to tell when someone's telling truth? Since I'm a stranger and all."

Luke relaxed a little at the steady, firm answer, before tensing at the idea that they had been scouting the farm, had been slipping around Uncle Owen's home and precious equipment, and his eyes sharpened again. He didn't care for that, at all... and then there was that last. "...'General', you called him, and it sounds like it ought to be his name. 

"He's just been 'crazy old Ben' all my life, the local hermit. Until a couple of days ago, anyway. Now there's... all of this, and you two, and I have _so little_ idea what's going on. So to answer your question, no, not really. 

"But I do know how not to get swindled, even in Mos Eisley." 

"Takes doing," Rex admitted. "Hutt planets are always so unpleasant." He then popped out his comm unit and made it display Leia in miniature. "We're mostly here because of this girl," he said as he revealed the Senator he now served, Bail's daughter… and likely this boy's sister, because Rex could see pieces of Anakin Skywalker all in him. "Apparently, she's got the Force too, like a _Jetii_."

Luke stared at the small image, the blue of the holo not hiding that her hair was dark, her gown white, her eyes dark, the smile on her lips incredibly beautiful... well, no. Everything about her was incredibly beautiful, and he forgot to breathe for a moment, staring at her, the stranger's words not entirely even heard. So beautiful, unlike anyone he'd ever seen -- 

\-- except... he had seen her, hadn't he? He felt his brow furrow, staring, and his head cocked slightly, trying to understand the fact that he knew he had never seen anyone like this girl, and still knew her. 

Oh. 

He'd dreamed about her, in his dreams of being somewhere else, some-when else, cities on the edge of impossible pools of water... and cities taller than anything that could ever really be, with hundreds of layers of speeder traffic. Just dreams, he'd always thought, crazy imaginings he'd dreamed up.

But if the girl was real... 

Rex just let the boy stare; objectively, he knew Leia was considered beautiful. He could let the kid down later about the whole sister-brother thing. He knew that was frowned on by a lot of species, after all. The voices across the way were a bit heated… but the weapons were staying put away.

How had his two generals come so far apart in their lives? It pained him, as they'd been like brothers. Yet, the damnable chips had turned most of his own brothers into monsters he would have eliminated rather than allow to live and possibly realize what they had done. To learn most had… and found ways to die… had hurt deep inside.

Was that what it was like? He knew it had to be for his own General, but what was Kenobi's reasoning? Rex sighed; Ahsoka would either tell him or not, later.

"The girl's name is Leia. Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, current Senator," Rex told the boy when he thought the lad was paying attention. "She started dreaming about you, here, and that let her and her birth-father know you existed."

"She looks like a princess," Luke replied, his voice still absent as he studied the holo. Then there were those last words, and his eyes snapped up, finding the stranger's face. "Dreams? 

"About me?" Now that, that he couldn't understand at all. "That's -- why me?" 

"Because, kid, you're her brother, if we're right about everything. That's what Ahsoka's verifying now, with the General." Rex turned the comm off and tucked it away. "Among other things… they've got some important history."

The protesting noise Luke'd wanted to make shut off in his throat as the older man answered him, and he shook his head once, not certain if it was more out of shock or chagrin that he'd been staring at her so much. "What? _Me_ , related to -- to her? That's... you've got to be wrong. Ben would've said something, when he was telling me why we had to leave, if I had a sister out there somewhere..." 

Or would he?

What did he really know about the old man, after all? "And you said her birth-father. My father's dead." 

"Kriffing -- " Rex almost pushed off his rock to go punch the General in the nose for using that to cover up the entire incident. "He'd've better been meaning to set you straight! If you'd walked out into the galaxy with that idea, and General Kenobi's idea of 'fix things', things could've gone pretty bad.

"Not going to lie and tell you that your father's a great man through and through. He _was_ a man I'd follow into hell and back, and then he kriffed it something fierce," Rex said. "But he's trying to fix it all now, and the way he treats your sister is solid. He wants to know you as well."

The profanity startled Luke a little, as did the sudden flash of fury he could read in those dark eyes and tight mouth, and the low half-worried, half-angry tone on the entire rest of his words... "Well, yours will make the third version of 'Luke, your father was a...' in five days, and apparently doesn't end with him dead at the end of the Clone Wars, so okay, what do _you_ know about him?" 

Rex chuckled. "Kid, I served Anakin Skywalker through the entire war... just about, anyway. The Hero with No Fear? Yeah, pretty image for the holo-net. Hell of a pilot, decent at being a general… by letting me handle the troops and going off to take out the things we couldn't get to right away. Recognized us all as men, not a product, and even regretted having to destroy so many clankers in the course of the war.

"Granted, one of his best friends was an astromech, but that just went to show how he approached who was an individual." Rex sighed softly. "Good man, and I hate like all _haran_ that I never glimpsed the danger he was in until it was too late."

Luke listened, intent, focused on the man in front of him, watching his face and listening. There was... profound affection in that voice; no, that was love, and he said so easily 'I served Anakin Skywalker through the entire war', as though that was the most natural thing in the world. 

His father, one of the Jedi Knights, _and_ a general? Apparently not just a general, but some kind of great hero? 

Well, 'hell of a pilot' matched Ben's words, and 'as men, not a product' -- 

\-- this man in front of him was one of the clones those wars were named for? Luke snorted at himself, it wasn't as though _that_ should matter. The idea of his father having an astromech droid friend... well, he was sort of fond of the old Tredwell unit, but agri-droids didn't have much in the way of personality. 

'The danger he was in'. That was important, incredibly important, everything he was rang with certainty of that. "Did anyone?" 

Rex's face fell. "No, we did not. We'd pretty much all been maneuvered away from him at the wrong time. Ahsoka by the Jedi, me by things I'd learned, General Kenobi by duty, and your mother… well, she was trying to salvage the Republic with her bare hands. It left our General vulnerable to that piece of filth, the so-called Emperor who'd been the last Chancellor of the Republic." He spit to the side at the mention of that one.

Luke blinked, listening to all of the grief he could seen in that sudden shift of this man's face come out in his voice, hearing the list of people that had been maneuvered away from his father somehow. And then, just that quick, the grief changed to fury, dark eyes ablaze and his voice suddenly sharp -- but the hatred for the Emperor was less important to him than the last person mentioned. 

"My mother? You knew my mother, too?" 

"Not so well as Ahsoka, but yes," Rex told him. "She often wound up right in the middle of things, your mother that is, and then the General would have to save her, and we'd be right there with him. Ahsoka actually went and did things with her a few times.

"Funny thing is, we left your father telling Leia stories about her, and I bet Artoo is helping, given that droid's never met a memory wipe that took."

"...how does a droid beat a memory wipe?" Luke asked, startled, enough by that last aside that it took his mind off the thought of his mother for a moment. Uncle Owen had never said _anything_ about his mother. Aunt Beru had said she was beautiful, once, but... never anything else. "I mean..." 

"Pretty sure the General had something to do with it; he would have protected the droid as much as he protected any of his friends," Rex told Luke. "You could ask him, when you meet him."

There was no ifs, ands, or buts to that part. One way or another, Luke was going to have to meet his father. What happened after that would be up to the kid's wishes and persuasiveness.

"Meet him," Luke repeated, stunned. 

Until less than half an hour ago, he'd believed his father had been dead for his entire life. First, because he'd been a casualty on a freighter attacked during the Clone Wars, and then, after two days ago, because he'd been a Jedi Knight, a starfighter pilot 

He'd still been trying to figure out what he felt about _that_ , and now... now his father was alive? Alive, not far away, and somehow part of the Empire? "Maybe I will." 

Rex opened his mouth, then shut it and stood stiffly as General Kenobi came close. "Sir," he said automatically, before looking to his wife. A hand-sign from her and he knew he could leave off guarding the boy to join her.

"Please don't do that to me," Kenobi told the Captain. "My days as a soldier are long behind me, Captain."

"As may be, sir, but habits die hard… or you would have called me Rex," he pointed out before going back to Ahsoka, leaving Kenobi and the boy nominal privacy.

"It seems, Luke, that all of the stirrings in the Force have been for better reasons than I feared," Ben told the boy.

"I think he -- Rex, is that his name? -- just said that the Emperor is dead," Luke replied, watching Ben's face, fingers raking through his hair. "But then, he also said that a) my father's alive and b) I have a sister, so... 

"What am I supposed to believe, Ben?" 

"Rex does not lie, and he is astute at discerning truths," Ben told him, letting a deep breath escape him. "I had hoped to have more time to teach you, to help protect you from the danger your father became, yet she insists the danger is past." The Jedi took a seat on the rock vacated by Rex. "Luke, I made a vow to protect you, and I am trying to determine the best way to do that now.

"My instincts say one thing, because I have lived here alone for so long, watching you grow up. The Force, though… agrees that the safest thing to do is to encourage you to go with Ahsoka, and meet your sister."

Luke raked his fingers through his hair, looking at the old man that had already pulled him away from one life. He trusted Ben, almost despite himself he trusted Ben, but all of this... his whole world was reeling from one blow after another. 

"Why did Uncle Owen always say my father was dead?" 

"In hopes it would serve to keep your feet firmly on the planet, not with your head among the stars," Ben answered. "At least, that is what I suppose. I know he felt a grave, deep responsibility to protecting you as a way to repay the legacy of kindness he had known from his step-mother. That would be your father's mother."

Luke made a low noise... he actually could see that of his uncle. Uncle Owen had been determined to keep him here, 'where it's safe', for... as long as he could remember. Their arguments about him leaving, about the Academy, about having a chance at something had only been getting worse, the closer he got to his majority. 

"He's a good man," Luke said, "he just doesn't understand me at all. ...Grandmother Shmi, right? There's a marker for her just off the rim. 

"You said 'the danger your father became', and Rex said -- well, basically he said my father had really messed up, but now he's trying to fix it," he wasn't about to copy that profanity to Ben, to anyone as much older than him as Ben was, "but I have no idea what either one of you mean." 

"That's because I don't believe any of us have told you who Anakin Skywalker became when he fell to the Dark Side of the Force. He is -- was, according to Ahsoka, and I have little reason to distrust her at this point -- Darth Vader." Ben waited for that to sink in, watching Luke carefully.

"W -- what?" 

Ben had been explaining about the Force for the last couple of days, about sensing it, about how to use it... about the dangers of it, so at least he could follow the words... but that... 

He knew that name, from Imperial propaganda, from tales whispered in Anchorhead... and what he knew of it was terror. 

"I thought you said people don't come back from the Dark Side?" 

"That, Luke, is what I believed all of my life," Ben said, his voice so tired and pained by all of this. "But Ahsoka is not tainted by the Dark Side any more than any other Jedi who came through the Clone Wars alive. And she honestly believes your father is finding balance. If this is the case, I can only urge you to meet with the man, and choose how to proceed from there. 

"I do not wish to see your father Fall again, over something as simple as a meeting."

Luke studied all of that tired pain, looked towards the pair of alien and human, then closed his eyes and tried to listen to that small quiet voice that Ben was trying to teach him to reach. 

What was he supposed to do, with all of this? 

Almost instantly, eager anticipation buffeted him, hope and longing... and an utter conviction followed that. "Then I'm going," he said, opening his eyes. 

Ben reached out and gripped his shoulder. "May the Force be with you, Luke. They will take you to your father."

"What about you?" Luke asked, even as he reached to return that grip. 

"Always in motion, the future is," Ben said ambiguously. "I hope you find the future you need most, Luke." He stood to make his way back to the shelter they had made here.

Luke took a slow, deep breath, and got up to walk towards the two strangers. His father's friends, at least, from the interwoven trust and wariness and grief and anger between the three of them. So not entirely strangers. 

"Okay... I guess we're going?" 

"So we are, kid," Rex said, making his voice a little less gruff, before heading toward the ship. Ahsoka looked in Obi-Wan's direction, but he was not looking at them. She didn't let that sting; instead she gave Luke a small smile of encouragement. 

"You're either going to love Leia, or decide she is the bossiest thing ever, but either way, it's more family, right?" she offered, scooping her hand around his arm to walk him to the ship.


End file.
